V. I. Lenin

The Present Situation And The

Immediate Tasks Of Soviet Power

July 4, 1919[1]

Delivered:4 July,1919First Published:Brief report published inPravdaNo.145, July 5, 1919; First published in full in 1932; Published according to the verbatim report, verified with thePravdatextSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 29, pages 456-469Translated:George HannaTranscription/HTML Markup:David Walters & Robert CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

Comrades, when one is confronted with the task of
    assessing our general situation as it now is, the idea enters
    one’s head, whether one wishes it or not, of comparing July
    1919 with July 1918. I think that such a comparison, which
    naturally suggests itself, can best give us a true conception of
    those new difficulties--to a certain extent they are also old
    difficulties-which have grown up and have made our situation a
    burdensome one demanding a fresh effort; on the other hand this
    comparison shows us the tremendous step forward that has been made
    by the world revolution in that year and tells us why, taking a
    most sober, even a most sceptical view of affairs, we again are
    quite confident that we are advancing to the complete and final
    victory.

Recall the situation a year ago, comrades. It was ill July 1918
    that the menacing black clouds had gathered and that seemingly
    insurmountable misfortunes threatened the Soviet Republic. The
    food situation, then as today, had become graver at the end of the
    farming year, when stocks were running short and the new harvest
    had not been gathered. Last year the situation was incomparably
    worse. Then, as today, serious political and war difficulties,
    both at home and abroad, were added to the food difficulties. The
    meeting of the Congress of Soviets last year coincided with the
    revolt of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries ill Moscow and the
    treason of Muravyov, a Left Socialist-Revolutionary then in
    command of the army, who left our front almost open. In the summer
    of 1918 there was the gigantic plot in Yaroslavi which, as has now
    been proved and is admitted by those participating, was due to the
    activities of French Ambassador Noulens, who persuaded Savinkov to
    organise the plot with a guarantee that the French troops landed
    at Archangel would come to the aid of Yaroslavl and that in the
    most difficult situation in Yaroslavi the town could expect to
    link with Archangel and the Allies and, consequently, could expect
    the early fall of Moscow. At that time the enemy succeeded ill
    capturing Samara, Kazan, Simbirsk, Syzran and Saratov ill the
    East. In the South, Cossack troops reinforced by German
    imperialism--this has been fully established-obtained money and
    munitions. The enemy launched an offensive, closed in on us from
    two sides and began to poke fun at its. From German imperialist
    quarters it was said that if we could not defeat the Czechoslovaks
    how could we hope to defeat them. Such was the insolent tone
    adopted by the imperialists.

Such was the seemingly hopeless way in which the Soviet
    Republic was surrounded at a time of unprecedented food troubles,
    at a time when our army was only just beginning to take shape. The
    army lacked organisation and experience and we had to get it
    together hastily, contingent by contingent, when systematic,
    integrated work was out of the question. We lived through that
    year and, relying on the experience gained and never once
    forgetting the past, we have every right to say today that
    although the situation is indeed a difficult one, if we compare
    what we experienced last year with the present situation-anyone
    who wishes to make a careful study of it, observe and not give way
    to his own moods will have no doubts about it-we shall see that
    our present situation is incomparably more stable even from the
    point of view of the simple internal balance of forces, even by
    comparing the facts bearing on our temporary difficulties, and to
    give way to panic would be criminal a thousand times over. A year
    ago the situation was incomparably more difficult yet those
    difficulties were surmounted, so that we may say with absolute
    confidence and without any exaggeration of our forces or
    underestimation of our difficulties that we shall also surmount
    our present difficulties. I must give you the main comparable
    figures and speakers who follow me will deal with the question in
    greater detail.

When the food situation became acute last summer, things were
    so bad that in July and August there was literally nothing in the
    warehouses of the Commissariat of Food, the organisation which
    deals with food supplies, nothing which could be issued to the
    most war-weary, the most tormented and the most hungry people of
    the towns and the non-agricultural districts. This year our food
    distribution machinery has made a tremendous advance. During the
    year from August 1, 1917 to August 1, 1918 we procured only 30
    millionpoodsof grain but between August 1, 1918 and May
    1, 1919 we procured as much as 100 millionpoods. This is
    very little compared with what we need, and it shows that to win a
    victory in the struggle for food there are millions of
    organisational obstacles that have to be overcome; they are being
    erected against us by every peasant who has grain surpluses and
    who is used to trading in a free market and who considers it his
    sacred right to sell grain at uncontrolled prices; this peasant is
    unable to understand that at such a time, when the country is
    lighting against. Russian and international capital, trading in
    grain is the most serious state crime. It is a mockery of the poor
    and the hungry, it is the best service he could do the capitalist
    and the profiteer. We know that every peasant who has earned his
    livelihood by toil, sweat and blood, by bending his back,
    understands what capitalism is. He sympathises with the
    proletariat, even if only hazily, instinctively, because he
    believes that the proletariat are devoting their whole lives and
    forfeiting their blood to overthrow capital. But he will have to
    make tremendous progress from this level before lie is able to
    uphold the interests of the socialist state and to place those
    interests higher than the interests of the huckster who wants to
    profit right now while he can sell grain at unheard-of,
    unprecedented prices. We are now beginning to get the measure of
    it. We have made part of the journey and, therefore, know for
    certain that no matter how difficult and tortuous the road, we are
    capable of surmounting the difficulties. We have made considerable
    progress as compared with last year but we have not yet solved all
    problems. We cannot promise an immediate improvement, but we know
    that the situation offers much greater hopes; we now know at any
    rate that our resources are not cut off as they were last year by
    Cossack gangs in the South-East, by German imperialism in the
    South-West and by the Czechoslovaks in the grain-producing
    East. The situation is much better so that we shall be able to
    live through and overcome the next few weeks that will undoubtedly
    bring fresh burdens and claim fresh sacrifices knowing that we did
    it last year, knowing that our situation is better, knowing that
    we already have practical experience of the chief difficulty of
    any socialist revolution, the food difficulty. And we really can
    say, without relying on assumptions and hopes, but on the basis of
    our own practical experience, that we have learned to tackle this
    difficulty and will learn to surmount it.

If you take the present war situation in which the Allies
    collapsed when they seized the Ukraine after the Germans and when
    they had Odessa and Sevastopol, we see that the threat which
    seemed irrevocable to the mass of the petty bourgeoisie and to the
    scared philistines turned out to be an empty one, that it was
    nothing more than a giant with feet of clay. They did everything
    they could to help the whiteguards, landowners and capitalists
    with arms and ammunition. The British newspapers-and British
    ministers, too-boasted openly that they had sent reinforcements to
    Denikin. We have received information that they have sent
    equipment for 250,000 men and have provided all the arms. We have
    also received information, and it has been confirmed, to the
    effect that they have sent dozens of tanks. That made possible the
    severe attacks by Denikin that were launched at a time when the
    enemy was pressing oil us from the East. We know the difficult
    time we experienced last July. We do not in the least
    underestimate the danger and do not close our eyes to the fact
    that we must go openly to the masses, we must tell them what the
    situation is, tell them the whole truth and open their eyes,
    because time more this truth is known to the workers and
    particularly to the peasants-it is very difficult to convince
    peasants of the truth-the more determinedly, more steadfastly and
    class-consciously will they come over to our
    side.(Applause.)

In the Central Committee, comrades, we yesterday decided that
    Comrade Trotsky would make the report to you on the war
    situation. Unfortunately the doctors today forbade him absolutely
    to make that report. I shall, therefore, outline the situation in
    a few words, although I cannot by any means claim the role of
    rapporteur on these matters; I can, however, tell in brief
    outline, comrades, what we heard yesterday from Comrade Trotsky
    who had made a tour of the Southern Front.

The situation there is truly a grave one, extremely heavy
    attacks have been launched against us and we have suffered huge
    losses. There is a double reason for our failures. Yes, just two
    reasons; first, we had to withdraw large numbers of troops and
    transfer them as reinforcements to the East at a time when Kolchak
    was attacking. Precisely at this time Denikin carried out
    universal mobilisation. It is true, as one of the members of the
    Revolutionary Council of the Southern Front who has been working
    there a long time told us, that universal mobilisation will be the
    ruin of Denikin as it was of Kolchak; as long as he had a class
    army of volunteers who hated socialism it was strong and sound,
    but when he began universal recruitment he did, of course, get an
    army together more quickly, but the army became the weaker, and
    its class character less pronounced. Peasants recruited into
    Denikin’s army will do the same in that army as the Siberian
    peasants did in Kolchak’s army-they brought complete
    disintegration into the army.

Another reason for the failures, apart from the tremendous
    increase in Denikin’s army, was the development of guerrilla
    methods on the Southern Front. Comrade Trotsky also described this
    in detail yesterday. You all know what our armies experienced as a
    result of Grigoriev’s adventure, which resulted from
    Makhno’s banditry and what the Ukrainian peasants and the
    entire Ukrainian proletariat experienced during the rule of the
    Hetman. In the Ukraine, owing to the low level of proletarian
    class-consciousness, owing to weakness and lack of organisation,
    owing to Petlyura’s disorganising tactics arid the pressure
    of German imperialism-on these grounds hostility and guerrilla
    tactics have emerged spontaneously. In every group the peasants
    were taking up arms, electing their ownatainan,or
    “father”, to set up an authority, to create it on the
    spot. They paid no attention whatever to the central authorities
    and every “father” thought he was the boss on the
    spot, that lie alone could settle all Ukrainian problems,
    disregarding what was being done at the centre. It is now quite
    clear to us that in the present circumstances the peasants cannot
    he won over by enthusiasm alone-such a method is not reliable. We
    have warned the Ukrainian comrades a thousand times that when it
    is a matter of the movement of million-strong masses words are not
    enough; they must have their own day-to-day experience so that
    people can verify instructions themselves, so that they believe in
    their own experience. This experience has cost the Ukrainian
    peasants very dear. During the German occupation they suffered
    incredible misfortunes, made unbelievable sacrifices, many times
    greater than what we experienced; nevertheless they still do not
    know how to achieve an organisation and how to win their
    independence and state sovereignty. In the first period after the
    liberation from German imperialism, when Denikin’s gangs
    began to gain strength, our troops did not always deal them a
    suitable rebuff, and when our troops were held up by the rapid
    swelling of the rivers in spring, when it was impossible to
    advance and no reinforcements came from here, there arrived that
    catastrophic moment in which the first blow fell on the Ukrainian
    peasantry as a whole and on the peasantry of the zone contiguous
    to the Ukraine and the Don, but which will fortunately cure them
    of the defects of guerrilla tactics and chaos. We know full well
    that the Ukrainian peasants are strong enough to defeat
    Denikin’s forces, and we know that the blows they have
    received are very grave and will arouse in them a new
    classconsciousness and fresh strength. And Comrade Trotsky who
    himself saw the incredible losses suffered there, stated
    definitely that the experience of the Ukrainians cannot pass
    without leaving a trace, that it would bring about a complete
    change in the entire psychology of the Ukrainian peasants is that
    not what we have experienced? We know that our situation was no
    better last year. We know that a number of countries looked upon
    us, the young Russian republic, with contempt, and that today the
    same thing is beginning in many countries, the same phenomena are
    to be observed.

The Ukraine is recuperating with greater difficulty than we die,
      but she is recuperating. The lessons of collapse, of guerrilla
      tactics, have been assimilated. This will he an epoch of change
      in the entire Ukrainian revolution, and that will influence the
      entire development of the Ukraine. This is the period of change
      we, too, experienced when we turned our hacks on guerrilla
      tactics and the scattering of revolutionary phrases-we can do
      auything!-and began to realise the need for sound, sustained,
      persistent and difficult organising activities. This was the
      road we took many months after the October Revolution and on
      which we have achieved considerable success. We look towards the
      future fully confident that we shall surmount all
      difficulties.

One of the circumstances that Comrade Trotsky spoke of as being
    clear evidence of the change is what he observed in respect of
    deserters. He visited many gubernias where the comrades we had
    sent to combat desertion from the army had met with no success. He
    spoke himself at meetings and saw that tens of thousands of
    deserters in this country had either given way to panic or were
    trailing along too easily in the wake of the
    bourgeoisie. Nevertheless we had been ready to draw conclusions
    that were tantamount to despair. Trotsky, who travelled through
    Kursk and Byazan, was convinced, on the example of a number of
    towns, that the change that had taken place in this sphere was
    beyond description. Some commissars said they were now swamped
    with deserters pouring into the Red Army. They are joining the Red
    Army in such numbers that we can suspend our mobilisation as the
    ranks are filled by old deserters returning to the army.

The peasants have seen what campaigns by the Cossacks and by
    Denikin mean, and the masses of peasants have begun to show a
    double degree of class-consciousness—they had wanted an
    immediate peace and had been unable to understand that the Civil
    War had been forced on us. The peasants did everything they could
    to avoid enlistment—they hid in the woods or joined the
    green bands[Gangs of bandits in
    the Ukraine who engaged in plunder under cover of political
    slogans against Reds and Whites during the Civil
    War—Editor.]and there tried to ignore
    everything else. This is the state of affairs that led to collapse
    in the Ukraine; this was the state of affairs that gave us many
    thousands of deserters. Trotsky spoke about the change that took
    place when we granted the deserters a longer period in which to
    report, when we approached the problem more boldly. Hundreds of
    comrades turned up for work in Ryazan Gubernia and the change took
    place. They attended the meeting and deserters poured into the Red
    Army. The local commissars say they could not keep pace with
    them. This is the circumstance connected with the recapture of
    Liski railway station which strengthened our positions at Kursk
    and Voronezh. This circumstance gave Trotsky reason to say that
    the position in the South was serious and that we should bend all
    efforts. I maintain, however, that the situation is not
    catastrophic. That is the conclusion we arrived at
    yesterday.(Applause.)

That conclusion is not open to doubt and we shall do everything
    to exert all our efforts; we are sure the class consciousness of
    the working masses will triumph for we have the experience of the
    Ukraine which tells us that the closer Denikin approaches and the
    clearer it becomes what lie and the capitalists, and landowners
    are bringing, the easier will it be for us to combat desertion and
    the more boldly can we offer the deserters a further week in which
    to report The day before yesterday the Council of Defence extended
    the period by a further week because we are now fully confident
    that the class-consciousness that Denikin is bringing them will
    not be wasted and the Red Army will continue to grow if we
    remember that all our efforts during the next few months must be
    devoted to war work. We must tell you that we shall now help the
    South and achieve victory there in the same way as we did in the
    East. There may be people who give way to moods, comrades, those
    most inclined to panic, who will ask whether we shall not lose
    what we have gained in the East if we turn our main attention to
    the South. As far as this is concerned we may ay that the
    conquests made by our troops in the East will, by all accounts,
    merge with the Siberian revolution.(Applause.)

Yesterday a certain Menshevik made a speech in Moscow. You can
    read Citizen Colosov’s report inIzvestia;he said
    that time Mensheviks were leaving for Siberia, believing that
    there was a Constituent Assembly and the power of the people
    there, that universal suffrage and the will of the people ruled,
    and not some dictatorship of one class, usurpation,
    violence—as they dub Soviet power. The experience of these
    people, who flirted with Kerensky for eight months and who gave up
    everything to Kornilov, who learned nothing and went over to
    Kolchak—experience has now shown that it was not the
    Bolsheviks, but the enemies of the Bolsheviks, people who devoted
    all their activities to the struggle against the Bolsheviks and
    travelled hundreds ofverststo do it, who drew the
    conclusions that we have heard and which the public learned from
    the reports of the Mensheviks, conclusions that show that the
    Merisheviks have repelled not only the workers but the peasants as
    well, and not only the peasants, but even the kulaks. Even the
    kulaks are rebelling against Kolchak!(Applause.)None of
    those descriptions of the revolts against Kolchak’s rule was
    in the least bit exaggerated. Not merely workers and peasants, but
    also patriotically-minded intellectuals, who had all formerly
    sabotaged our work and who had been allies of the Entente-Kolchak
    has repelled even them. We are now being told that an insurrection
    is under way in the Urals, that we have before us an instance of a
    real workers’ uprising; and again we say that there is every
    chance that victory in the Urals will be a turn towards the
    complete victory of the entire mass of the Siberian population
    over Kolchak’s government, and that there are grounds for
    expecting it within the next few months.

Comrades, you read of the capture of Motovilikha in
    yesterday’s newspapers-this is where the Urals factory
    district begins. The details of the capture of Perm, where several
    regiments came over to our side, confirm it, and every day we are
    receiving telegram after telegram indicating that a decisive
    turning-point has been reached in the Urals. This is corroborated
    by a telegram I received today from Ufa dated July 2. We have more
    detailed information which gives us good grounds to assert that a
    decisive turning-point has been reached and we shall be victorious
    in the Urals. By the capture of Penn and then of Motovilikha we
    have achieved a great deal; they are big factory centres where the
    workers are organising, are coming over to our side in hundreds
    and are cutting the railway lines in the rear of the
    enemy. Probably few of you have had an opportunity of seeing
    Kolchak’s people, workers and peasants who have come from
    there, but we should like people in Moscow to see more of those
    who come from there. Were not the Cis-Urals and Siberian peasants
    ready to turn their backs on the Bolsheviks a year ago? They were
    discontented and indignant at the Bolsheviks for demanding help in
    a difficult war and for saying “victory over the landowners
    and capitalists is not easily won and if they make war on you, you
    must he prepared to make every sacrifice to defend the gains of
    the revolution. Revolutions are not easily made, and if you find
    these sacrifices too much for you, if you have not enough stamina
    to make these sacrifices, you will ruin the revolution”. The
    peasants did not want to listen to this, they thought it was
    nothing more than a revolutionary appeal. When the other side
    offered peace and the help of the Entente they went over to that
    side. You realise, of course, that the Siberian peasants have
    never experienced serfdom. They are the best-fed peasants in
    Russia, they are used to exploiting people exiled from Russia;
    they are peasants who could not see that there would he anything
    to gain from the revolution, and these peasants got their leaders
    from the entire Russian bourgeoisie, from all the Mensheviks and
    Socialist-Revolutionaries-there were hundreds, thousands of them
    there. Some people put the present population of Omsk, for
    instance, at 900,000 bourgeois and others at 500,000. Literally
    all the bourgeoisie got together there, all those who claimed the
    right to lead the people because of their possession of knowledge
    and culture and their habit of ruling-people of all parties, from
    the Mensheviks to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, gathered
    there. They had well-fed peasants, solid men not inclined to
    socialism, they had aid from all the Entente countries, from the
    all-powerful countries that held power in their hands throughout
    the world. They had railway lines with free access to the sea, and
    that meant complete mastery, for the flag of the Allies has no
    rival anywhere in the world and rules over the entire globe. What
    else was wanting? Why was it that these people who had everything
    that was to he had against the Bolsheviks-a country with strong,
    solid peasants and the aid of the Entente-why did they collapse so
    badly after two years’ experience that all that was left in
    place of the “power of the people” was the barbaric
    rule of the sons of landowners and capitalists? Kolchakia broke
    down completely, and this is actually tangible when our Red Army
    approaches the Urals as the liberator. A year ago the peasants
    were shouting, “Down with the Bolsheviks, they put burdens
    on the shoulders of the peasants”, and they went over to the
    side of the landowners and capitalists. At that time they did not
    believe what we told them; now they have experienced for
    themselves, now they have seen that the Bolsheviks took one horse
    away from a peasant whereas the Kolchak people took everything,
    the horses and everything else, and re-introduced tsarist
    discipline. Now that the peasants have the experience of the past
    they welcome the Red Army as their deliverer and say that sound
    and complete liberty will come to Siberia together with the
    Bolsheviks.(Applause.)

This experience of Koichakia is a most valuable experience for
    us; it shows us on a small scale what is going on all over the
    world, it shows us the real sources-sources that are invincible,
    sources that are ineradicable-of the strength of the
    Bolsheviks. We had seemed helpless when Siberia was in the hands
    of our enemies. Now that gigantic power has collapsed. Why?
    Because we were right in our appraisal of the imperialist war and
    its consequences, we were right when we said that mankind would
    not emerge from this as it had from previous wars-people had
    suffered so much, had been tormented so much, were so full of
    wrath against capitalism that the rule of the working class would
    set in and socialism would be established. The “middle
    way” has been mentioned here, and I know very well that the
    Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks dream of that
    middle way, that the best people in those intermediate parties
    dream sincerely of that middle way, but we know from the
    experience of whole countries and peoples that it is an empty
    dream, because there is no middle way in the kingdom of the
    Constituent Assembly where the Chernovs and Maiskys again began
    their ministerial careers and were a complete failure. Is this an
    accident or Bolshevik slander? Nobody will believe that it is! If
    they started out with such faith in the Constituent Assembly and
    ended up with such a failure it only goes to show once again that
    the Bolsheviks are right when they say that there must he either
    the dictatorship of the proletariat, the dictatorship of all
    working people and a victory over capitalism, or the most filthy
    and sanguinary rule of the bourgeoisie, even going as fare as a
    monarchy established by Kolchak, as in Siberia. And now I can go
    over from the lessons and conclusions drawn from Siberia to a
    brief outline of the international situation.

Comrades, we have made tremendous progress in our internal
    policy; millions of Russian peasants who a year ago had an
    absolutely unenlightened view of the wide world, who believed any
    glib talk about the Constituent Assembly, who lost heart oil
    account of the burdens imposed by Bolshevism, who ran away every
    time there was an appeal to struggle-since then the peasants have
    had such an incredibly burdensome and sanguinary experience at the
    hands of the Germans in the South that they have learned a lot. We
    have become infinitely strong because millions of people have
    realised what Kolchak is; millions of peasants in Siberia have
    come over to Bolshevism-they are waiting for the Bolsheviks,
    literally all of them-not because of our sermons and doctrines,
    but because of their own experience; they called for the
    Socialist-Revolutionaries and put them in power but from their
    having placed the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in
    power they got the old Russian monarchy, the old Russian
    policeman, who introduced incredible lawlessness into the country
    together with the “democracy”, This cure of time
    people, however, is worth a lot.(Applause).

Take a glance at the world situation. Have we not made a
    tremendous step forward in this respect during the past year when
    we compare it with what we had a year ago? Did not even people
    devoted to the revolution turn against us at that time, did they
    not say that time Bolsheviks had sold Russia to the German
    predators, that the Brest peace had demonstrated what a serious
    mistake had been made, and did they not believe that only the
    alliance of democratic France and Britain would save Russia? And
    what happened? A few months after last year’scrisis the
    Brest peace had ceased to exist. Six months passed after November
    9, 1918, when Germany was defeated, and it took that six
    months’ effort on the part of the French and British
    imperialists to conclude peace. And what did the peace bring? What
    it gave was this: all the workers who had until then been on the
    side of the champions of the French and British imperialists who
    had preached war to the end, all of them are now coming over to
    our side, not even day by day but hour by hour; they tell
    themselves that they had been deceived into waging war for four
    years. They had. been promised the defeat of Germany in the name
    of liberty, the victory of liberty and equality, the victory of
    democracy, and instead of it they had been given the Treaty of
    Verailles, an unworthily imposed peace for the purpose of plunder
    and profit. During that year our situation has been one of intense
    struggle for the victory of the world revolution. And our
    situation, if you compare it to that of the enemies, has been such
    that we have acquired ever more allies throughout the world at
    every step we have taken. We now see that what the Germans, from
    their imperialist point of view consider a defeat, that what the
    French and British consider a full victory-we see that this is the
    beginning of the end for the French and British imperialists. The
    working-class movement is growing faster and faster. The workers
    are demanding the withdrawal of foreign troops from Russia and the
    annulment of the Treaty of Versailles. We were alone at the time
    of the Treaty of Brest; it was swept away and its place was taken
    by the Treaty of Versailles that is strangling Germany.

In appraising the last year’s experience, in recognising
    frankly all difficulties, we are able to say to you calmly,
    confidently and soberly, “Comrades, we have come again and
    again to outline to you the general situation and to picture to
    the advanced workers of Moscow those difficulties that we have
    again come up against; we invite you to give some thought to the
    lessons we have learned in this difficult period and on the basis
    of your thinking and your appraisal, on the basis of this
    experience, reach, together with us, the firm and unshakable
    conviction that victory will be ours, on a world and not only on a
    Russian scale. Again and again we shall muster our forces to make
    up for the defeats we have suffered in the South. We shall put
    forward the tried and tested weapons of organisational ability,
    discipline and loyalty, and then we are certain that Denikin will
    be broken, and will collapse in the same way as Kolchak has
    collapsed and the French and British imperialists are now
    collapsing.(Stormy applause.)

[1]This meeting was held in the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, when the
    situation was difficult on account of Deminkin’s
    offensive. Because of Leon Trotsky’s illness, Lenin combined
    his own notes and that of Trotsky—s report, who was Chairman
    of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic and
    People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and
    closely collaborated with Lenin on military and political affairs
    during this period. Lenin’s report was followed by the
    adoption of an appeal “To All Workers, Peasants, Red Army
    Men and Sailors” to bend all their efforts to repulse the
    enemy and achieve a decisive victory over Kolchak, Denikin and all
    the satraps of the counter-revolution.